Housings for electrical devices, such as connectors, circuit breakers, and fuse panels, are used in many applications, including recreational vehicles such as motor homes and boats. In a typical application, the housing receives multiple cables for connection to devices within the housing and to carry electrical power to a number of devices outside of the housing. It is good practice to use de-tensioning devices within the housing to insure that electrical connections between the cables and the devices within the housing are not strained or stressed if tension is applied to the cable at some point outside the housing, an event which commonly occurs during installation and/or service.
One way to provide a de-tensioning structure is to mold a port into a panel of the housing having opposing resilient fingers defining a narrow slit-like aperture which unidirectionally resists passage of an electrical cable through the aperture. In short, the fingers permit the insertion of the cable into the housing but resist any movement in the opposite direction such as may occur if the cable were tugged or pulled at some point outside of the housing.
The problem with this approach is that the opposed fingers which make up the anti-tensioning device are frequently broken off during installation. Under these circumstances, good practice requires discarding and replacing the entire housing. Where the housing is complex, such a practice is costly and time consuming.